Everybody says your life will never be the same once you have a child. Mine bears very little resemblance to what came before. I look back over what I've written here, on this blog, and so little of it seems to fit anymore. More specifically, while before it seems so much of my identity came from my work as a professor, now that part of my life seems to matter very little. All my worries about my teaching & students seem pretty inconsequential now. Petty, even. My days revolve entirely around Bino (a better pseudonym than D., and an actual nickname-- short for Bambino-- what we called him when he was still in utero). Sometimes it's a bit exhausting. At times I wish I had more time to read/write blogs or go for a walk or cook or do something that doesn't require me having him attached to me in some way. But it occurs to me that when he gets older I won't be allowed this constant physical contact with him. For now, I want to be near him, just about every minute possible. He must be seven pounds, now. He's growing and changing so quickly. I'm so glad I'll be around for much of it. I'm teaching just one class at the college in town. I can't imagine what my life would be like this fall if I'd accepted the full time offer I had elsewhere and P. had followed me instead...

We gave Bino a bath the other day-- and he loved it! He nearly fell alseep in the water and was all smiley when I pulled him out and put him in his towel...

He makes the cutest faces when he's just woken up (he also moves his arms and legs around adoringly) and when he's just gotten done nursing. He's more alert now than ever, and sometimes his eyes are wide and just looking, looking, looking. His cry sounds like "Naaaaaaaaaaaaa Nnnnaaaaaaaaaaa Nnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and sometimes "Nnwaaaaaaaa". Though something P. read says that babies can't suck and grasp in coordination, Bino routinely holds his own pacifier in his mouth. He doesn't mind poopy diapers, but hates wet ones. He likes to sleep on us, in his car seat & in our bed, and generally wakes up quickly if we put him somewhere else for a nap. He gets the hiccups at least twice a day and waits patiently for them to go away, even though his whole body is moving with them.

He's hungry all the time. Like now.

part ii

They kept D. in the ICU for about a week. Happily, P. and I were able to spend nights at the hospital-- gratis-- in this special room reserved for mothers who want to keep nursing their babies through the night. After 2 days of sleeping with D. in the room with me, it was hard to be apart from him even as much as we were. We spent days going to visit or nurse D. every few hours, and nights were much the same for me. We got to know the nurses on all three shifts. I've never had as much respect for the nursing profession (and I thought it was a noble vocation before!) as I do now. These women-- a few in particular-- were so patient, knowledgable, kind... they are the ones (not the doctors) who really seemed to pull D. through all of this. We had a few scary moments-- D. was put on a feeding tube for a little while, after still having erratic drops in his blood sugar-- & every time another baby in the ICU went home and D. didn't, I felt a little bit jealous. I didn't learn the names of any of the other parents we ran into, though there was communion and some conversation with them, but I remember the names of their children still.

D. turns a month old tomorrow. He's doing well. He's gaining weight and inches-- he was six and a half pounds at today's doctor's appointment. He's a lot more alert than he used to be. I'm not getting a lot of sleep yet, and I'm getting very little done during the daytime yet, either. Occasionally we can get D. to nap in his playpen or (even more rarely) in his crib. Most of the time he wants to be held. There are few things sweeter than watching him veg out and drift off to sleep in my arms. And there's this thing he does with his head after nursing-- he leans it way back and looks up at me... adorable.

Today we finally got D. to go into his sling and we even walked around outside with him inside it. Hopefully that will make it easier fo rme to get something more done in the house during the day. I've also just found a way to type and check blogs with the computer on the coffee table and D. on my lap in this chair... so maybe i'll be able to check in here more often, too.

There's no easy way to close this. But I can't resist posting another picture. I love the way he naps-- arms and legs sprawled out like this.

how it began

Before another week passes, I need to write this down. There are so many things I want to remember about how D. came to us.

We'd only been in New city for 3 or 4 days-- and the movers had only brought our belongings 2 days before-- when my water broke in the middle of the night. I woke up, gushing, nudged P. awake, & called my mom as P. and I tried to figure out what to do. Back in Old city, I'd actually bothered to pack an overnight bag for the hospital just in case, but at the last minute, P. and I decided to pack most of what was in the bag in something else and use the bag for things we needed on the car trip-- we figured the baby wouldn't arrive soon enough to worry about it. The day before D. came, I'd thought about packing that bag again, but didn't get around to it. I jumped in the shower and P. tried to pack, hastily. When I got out of the shower and got dressed, I started leaking again, and wanted to change clothes, but P. kept rushing me, trying to get met to the hospital. We wound up taking an old towel in the car fo rme to sit on, and I kept leaking on the way to the hospital.

We showed up at the emergency room and someone wheeled me through this maze of hospital corridors to a different part of the hospital where babies are born. They confirmed my water had broken, got me settled into a bed, and called my OB, who I hadn't even met yet (I had scheduled an appointment with her for 2 days later). An incredibly nice and soothing nurse named Julie took down all my information and stayed with me while we waited. An on-call doctor came to do an ultra-sound and confirm that D. was still breech. Some minutes after he left, D.'s heart rate went way down, and suddenly my room was flooded with nurses-- at least half a dozen. I was given oxygen, told first to lie on my side, and then to get on my hands and knees. The nurses handled everything very calmly, but it was a chaotic and confusing few minutes. I couldn't see P., I didn't know what was happening... the heart rate went back to normal again, my ob arrived, and I was prepped almost immediately for surgery. Everything seemed to go incredibly fast.

In the operating room, a kind Indian woman anesthesiologist gave me a spinal. My nurse, Julie, was there, and told me to arch my back and lean into her, to hold her scrubs if I wanted to. I can't explain how nurtured I felt by this woman... I was nervous about the needle going in, but didn't even feel it. I started going numb almost immediately. I couldn't even move myself onto the table. The screen went up, P. was brought in to sit near my head, and D. came out of me, apparently urinating, minutes later. I cried.

They took D. away pretty quickly, and P. wound up going with him, and letting me get finished being sewn up and taken to recovery on my own. Eventually I was taken back to my room and D. was brought into me. I'm not sure I can recall getting to hold him for the first time, but I know that the first few days together with him were entirely bliss-filled. I stayed in bed mostly and held and nursed D. while P. spent some time back at the apartment trying to finish unpacking or hiding boxes to get ready for my parents' arrival. The morphine and other pain killers made all that time blur together. I felt like I was inside a dream.

There will have to be a second chapter here, about D.'s time in the special care nursery, but that will have to wait for a while as D. is rousing himself for what's likely to be a midafternoon snack.

he's arrived

So much has happened in the past few weeks, I can't even begin to catch my breath. I've been aching to write for some time, but circumstances just haven't allowed enough time.

Our baby has arrived. In the very early morning of June 25th, my water broke, not even four days after P. and I moved into our New City apartment. We hadn't even finished unpacking boxes. D. was delivered by c-section some few hours later, weighing in at 4 pounds and 11 ounces of cuteness. Because he was early and small, they've kept him at the hospital all this time and P. and I have been through an emotional rollercoaster that all parents of "special care" kids must. As D's glucose levels fell and rose, so have our moods. We've spent more nights at the hospital now than we've spent at home, and that might continue a few more days. We finally seem to be on an upswing that will last, and hopefully we'll be able to bring the baby home by Tuesday. Cross your fingers for us.

(Isn't he cute? P. and I don't think we've ever seen anyone so beautiful. Everytime he looks up at me with smiley eyes, I think my heart will burst.)